Senate must raise debt ceiling above $12T

The Hill ^ | 09/07/09 | Walter Alarkon

[NMEwithin]

The Senate must move legislation to raise the federal debt limit beyond $12.1 trillion by mid-October, a move viewed as necessary despite protests about the record levels of red ink.

The move will highlight the nation’s record debt, which has been central to Republican attacks against Democratic congressional leaders and President Barack Obama. The year’s deficit is expected to hit a record $1.6 trillion.

Democrats in control of Congress, including then-Sen. Obama (Ill.), blasted President George W. Bush for failing to contain spending when he oversaw increased deficits and raised the debt ceiling.

“Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren,” Obama said in a 2006 floor speech that preceded a Senate vote to extend the debt limit. “America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.”

Obama later joined his Democratic colleagues in voting en bloc against raising the debt increase.

Now Obama is asking Congress to raise the debt ceiling, something lawmakers are almost certain to do despite misgivings about the federal debt. The ceiling already has been hiked three times in the past two years, and the House took action earlier this year to raise the ceiling to $13 trillion....

[NMEwithin]

This is just unreal...

[True Grit]

The congressional clunkers are the ones we should trade in.

[American Constitutionalist]

Hey, why not raise it to $ 20 Trillion or even $ 50 Trillion !!!

[SICSEMPERTYRANNUS]

For that matter, why have a debt ceiling at all?

[American Constitutionalist]

Yeah, just use a balloon and see high it can go.

[C210N]

Hey, why not raise it to $ 20 Trillion or even $ 50 Trillion !!!

Actually, it should be. Like the real unemployment number is around 16%, not the stated 9.7%.... same with the debt. The real number, including Social Insecurity, Mediscare, MidiScaid, it in fact is somewhere in the $60 Trillion ballpark.

[American Constitutionalist]

We own more than what we are worth as a nation..... i.e.
The Bank Ruptured Banana Republic of the United States of Amerika.

[Hattie]

Children and grandchildren my foot. That is propaganda to ease the sheeple. Face it folks, we are going to be paying right here and now.

[snowsislander]

Yes, they have waited very late to move on this. The public debt stood at $11,812,870,150,873.53 as of the close of business on August 31. At the rate it is growing, it will cross $12 trillion sometime in the next six weeks -— and it could be breached as early as the next 3 weeks.

[bestintxas]

I say no and hell no.

Let them start being examples to spend only what you have.

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

Let's see, you max out your Credit Card, then you have the credit limit raised so you can keep on spending like a teen ager on energy drink. That way you can spend your way out of debt which will then become prosperity because that money spent will all come back in the form of tax revenues.

Another fool by the name of Keynes tried this once before, which of course, utterly failed. LETS DO IT AGAIN! (Because this current crop of talented geniuses are not capable of failure because of their intellectual and moral superiority.)

[RobinMasters]

Happy days are here again.

Nuts. These people have absolutely no boundaries.

[backwoods-engineer]

We have to hold the line on this and say NO!! We have to be Gandalf in Moria and scream, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!"

Deficit spending at this level DEVALUES THE DOLLAR and reduces every American's purchasing power. It effectively REDUCES WAGES! Why would we let these clowns do this?

[Salvation]

NOOOOOOOOOO!

[elizabethgrace]

Make the democrats own it. All Republicans must vote NO.

[Lorianne]

The business community has supported Geithner's push for a higher debt ceiling. Bruce Josten, the top lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said it's essential to the U.S. economy.

“If we fail to address this in a timely fashion, then you run the risk of having to curtail government operations,” Josten said.

OMG, not that!

[SeattleBruce]

Hey, why not raise it to $ 20 Trillion or even $ 50 Trillion !!!

Actually, it should be. Like the real unemployment number is around 16%, not the stated 9.7%.... same with the debt. The real number, including Social Insecurity, Mediscare, MidiScaid, it in fact is somewhere in the $60 Trillion ballpark.
+++++++++++++++++++

[SeattleBruce]

Make the democrats own it. All Republicans must vote NO.
++++++++++++++++

Along with Blue Dogs...put ENOURMOUS pressure on them to explain this to us, to our kids, to our grandkids/grandkids to be!

[SeattleBruce]

“If we fail to address this in a timely fashion, then you run the risk of having to curtail government operations,” Josten said.
++++++++++++++++

Remember the howls from the Beast, when we tried to reign in spending in the 90s? They just SLAMMED the whole Contract with America over that - Newt got SLAMMED over it. It’s going to be perhaps the most difficult thing we EVER attempt - to try to slow down and stop this runaway freight train.

I’m not saying it’s not the right thing to do, I’m just recalling what happened last time we had the political capital to try.

[SeattleBruce]

Another fool by the name of Keynes tried this once before, which of course, utterly failed. LETS DO IT AGAIN!
+++++++++++++

I’m not fan of Keynes, but at least in theory he had governments balancing their deficit spending, with surpluses once per business cycle (say once every 8 to 10 years the budgets would overall balance.)

But, as you intimate, have we EVER been able to do this with any set of Congresses since about 1900?

Because we’re incapable of making that happen, Keynesian economics is a pipe dream.

We have to stop this freight train, before we can discuss gentlemanly political/economic theories again.

It may be a LONG time before that happens.